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The Traditions of Hanukkah | A Celebration of Hanukkah with Geoffrey Baer

The Traditions of Hanukkah

Two people at a table stacking gelt and holding dreidels
Playing dreidel is one of the many traditions of Hanukkah. Credit: iStock

One of the great Hanukkah miracles is that Jewish people everywhere, no matter where they live or their level of observance, celebrate the holiday in a similar way. Many of these traditions are at the heart of every Hanukkah celebration.

Menorah

A menorah is, in the most basic sense, a lamp or, more technically, a candelabra. At Hanukkah, it becomes a symbol of the great Hanukkah miracle and, more generally, of hope in a dark and despairing world. The Hanukkah menorah, also known as the hanukkiah, has eight branches and one holder for the shamash, the “helper candle” that lights the rest.

According to the Hanukkah story, way back in the second century BCE, a menorah was supposed to burn continuously in the temple in Jerusalem as a sign of eternal devotion to God. When the Seleucids conquered the city and took over the temple, they doused the flame. So when the Maccabees defeated the Seleucids and took the temple back, the first thing they did was try to relight the flame. Alas, they had only enough olive oil for one day, and it would take a week to make more. But miraculously, that little bit of oil lasted for eight whole days.

To commemorate that miracle, Jewish families light the menorah every night of Hanukkah. The standard practice is to add a light on each successive night, but some prefer to start with eight and take one away. Some people still use oil, but these days, most Jewish people prefer candles or electric lightbulbs.

It’s tradition to place their lighted menorahs in the window, a custom known in Hebrew as pirsumei nisa, or “publicizing the miracle.” Since the 1970s, some groups, notably Chabad, have taken this practice literally and lighted giant menorahs in public places to show the world that the Jewish people are still here.

Fried Food

A Jewish holiday is not a real Jewish holiday without food. On Hanukkah, Jews celebrate by eating food that’s been cooked in oil. In theory, any fried food will do: fried chicken, fried chicken livers, fried knishes. But in America, especially among Jewish people of Eastern European descent, the most popular is the potato latke.

A latke is a mixture of potatoes and onions bound together by eggs and flour or matzo meal, formed into a pancake, and fried in oil or schmaltz (chicken fat). Usually the potatoes are grated, though sometimes they’re mashed or ground up in a food processor. The method of preparation, however, is not nearly as controversial as the topping. Some people prefer applesauce. Some people prefer sour cream. Peacemakers eat their latkes with both. Others experiment with brisket or lox or caviar. But it’s generally agreed that it’s not Hanukkah unless your house smells like onions and cooking oil.

In other parts of the world, Jewish people make latkes from other vegetables, such as sweet potatoes or spinach, or from ricotta cheese or rice, and they’ll mix in meat or fish.

In Israel, however, the preferred fried food is filled doughnuts called sufganiyot. (A single doughnut is called a sufganiya, but who can eat just one?) Originally, sufganiyot were filled with raspberry jelly, but bakers have gotten more creative and experiment with custard, caramel, chocolate, and any delightful filling they can think of.

Dreidel

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Video: Spin the Dreidel

During the Seleucid occupation of Israel, before the Maccabee uprising, Jews were officially forbidden to study Torah together. This didn’t stop them, but whenever Seleucid soldiers were nearby, the legend goes, they would hide their books, pull out a top, and pretend they were playing a gambling game. This tradition survives today in the form of the Hanukkah game of dreidel.

A dreidel is a four-sided top with the Hebrew letters nun, gimel, heh, and shin on the sides. These stand for the phrase “Nes gadol hayah sham,” or “A great miracle happened there.” (In Israel, instead of shin, dreidels have a letter peh for “po,” or “here.”) At the start of the game, each player puts a game piece in the pot. Then they take turns spinning the dreidel and the letter that turns up tells them what to do: take the whole pot, take half the pot, put a piece in, or nothing. If you use edible game pieces, such as the chocolate coins called gelt, you have a good excuse to eat them.

Gifts

Even when Hanukkah was still an obscure minor festival, Jewish people would exchange treats or distribute small cash gifts to children. But when they immigrated to America in the late nineteenth century and saw the elaborate decorations, music, and gift-giving customs of Christmas, they were enchanted. Some were even tempted to begin celebrating the holiday themselves, in a non-religious way, of course.

In response, Jewish religious leaders decided to make their own midwinter holiday more attractive. They began organizing community Hanukkah celebrations with songs, menorah lighting, games of dreidel — and presents. And throughout the twentieth century, as Christmas became more commercialized, Hanukkah followed suit.

There is no official Hanukkah gift-giving procedure. Some families open presents on all eight nights. Some families save them for one big Hanukkah party. And, despite what you may have heard, it is not mandatory to give socks.

Music

Band playing on stage with various color spotlights shining

Meet the Band that Created a Rock Album for Hanukkah

Some of America’s most famous Christmas songs were written by Jewish songwriters, many of whom wrote under non-Jewish pen names. So where are the Hanukkah hits? Enter The LeeVees, a band formed in pursuit of expanding the Hanukkah repertoire.

Several great Jewish songwriters, including Irving Berlin, Jay Livingston, Bob Wells, and Mel Tormé, spent their finest seasonal efforts on Christmas with “White Christmas,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Santa Baby,” “Silver Bells,” and many, many others. But Hanukkah got short shrift musically.

Nevertheless, there are still a few songs to add to your Hanukkah playlist. There’s “Maoz Tsur,” or “Rock of Ages,” a hymn retelling the Hanukkah story. There’s “Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah,” which describes lighting the menorah. There’s “I Have A Little Dreidel” about everyone’s favorite Hanukkah game, though the dreidel in the song is inexplicably made out of clay.

In recent years, however, there have been attempts to expand the canon of Hanukkah songs from a diverse array of artists, including The LeeVees, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, the Indigo Girls, Jack Black, Sufjan Stevens, and the Flaming Lips. Perhaps the best-known is “The Chanukah Song,” a musical catalog of famous Jewish people first performed by Adam Sandler on Saturday Night Live in 1994 and periodically updated. None of them has achieved the ubiquity of “White Christmas,” but perhaps someday there will be another Hanukkah miracle.